Beethoven's Symphony No. 1 – a musical joke?

10. Beethoven's Symphony No. 1 – a musical joke?

Beethoven was 30 when his first symphony was first performed in the Burgtheater in Vienna (pictured), and it went where no symphony had ever gone before. Symphonies were seen to be pretty light-hearted works, but Beethoven took this one step further with the introduction, which sounds so musically off-beam it’s often considered to be a joke!